Antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium isolated from cattle in Japan

The antimicrobial susceptibility of 144 Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium isolates collected from all over Japan between 1973 and 1998 were investigated. All the isolates exhibited resistance to four or more antimicrobials and 22 resistance patterns were observed. Isolates showing resistance patterns to ampicillin (A), chloramphenicol (C), streptomycin (S), sulfonamides (Su) and tetracycline (T), which are typical resistance patterns for S. Typhimurium DT104 (DT104), were predominant. Thirty-six of the 68 isolates that exhibited resistance to five or more antimicrobials (ACSSuT+) were identified as DT104 by phage typing. Another 103 S. Typhimurium strains gathered from cattle between 1977 and 1999 in a limited area of Japan were analyzed for molecular epidemiological studies. Results using fluorescent amplified-fragment length polymorphism and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis suggest that clonal exchange of S. Typhimurium among cattle in Japan has occurred since 1992, and that contemporary strains show a remarkable degree of homogeneity with DT104 at a molecular level. The clonal replacement by DT104 affected the antimicrobial resistance pattern of S. Typhimurium from cattle in Japan.